Billy Dean
Player Valuation: £70m
Do you think western societies would've tolerated the kind of aggressive contact tracing the likes of S Korea and Taiwan have done? IMO I don't think they would mate.
Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!
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I think its important to be clear and distinguish on herd immunity. Herd immunity as a cincept has gotten a bit confused since the term was trotted out and became a political approach - like early in the Uk reaction - or running straight into natural herd immunity like Sweden.
There are two ways herd immunity is achieved:
1) Natural - catching the virus and developing immunity.
2) Artificial - having a vaccine.
A reasonable approach is to accept, that people are going to catch the virus and natural herd immunity will slowly progress, but recognising if you purposely try to develop, your health service will be swamped and yu will have a lot of deaths on your hands.
If you can control the natural herd immunity growth rate, through hammer and dance approach, you grow natural herd immunity incrementally, while trying to preserve and save lives. In the back ground you are buying time for a vaccine to developed and artificial herd immunity achieved. Both sides of the herd immunity are essentially eeking together to provide protection and reduce risk. Essentially all decisions in managing this are about managing the time until a vaccine can be developed in the best way that saves lives.
I think its unlikely we will achieve a minimum of 60% natural herd immunity before a vaccine artificial herd immunity.
So a question on anti body testing is, are precious resources better spent on developing testing those who may have the virus now, tracing their contacts and identifying clusters or are they best spent on those who may/may not already have immunity and what purpose would that serve. Id go for the first option myself.
In Englan, the ONS, along with dept of health, is going to run a large scale survey of households to establish an estimate of the prevalence of infection, so I would say that sort of negates the need for widespread antibody testing. Concentrating resources on testing/tracing seems like the best VFM in terms of trying to stay ahead of the virus.
Quite expensive pastime nowadays Bruce, but I've never saw so many cyclists in my life and what annoys me are adults riding on the pavement...
I think at best its going to murky piece of research, you would like the ONS to have a clear set of criteria - for example there are many out there who will say they had a bad flu in Jan/Feb and think it might have been the virus. Then there are many who have had symptoms, isolated, got over it, but never tested and are in the uneasy position of thinking they maybe have had it and are immune but dont know for definite. Even if it could be reliably tested what purpose would it serve bar knowing the % of potential immunity, i think we can safely assume this % is still in the vast minority of the overall population and likely to offer little protection.
This is an area of the virus, i think needs a bit more work before i would be looking to throw precious resources at it, currently we believe those who have it have developed some immunity, but we dont know how long that immunity lasts, could be a couple of weeks, months, years or decades.
I agree though, rampant testing, contact tracing and shutting down clusters in the community is the only show in town after (during if you can) lock down.
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Sorry, I should have included this tweet of his for clarity
“The main accelerant appears to be sitting in a closed space, huffing other people’s air for an extended period. Now I’m wondering about South Korean elevator etiquette. What were these colleagues in a call center bullpen doing that they wouldn’t also do in an elevator?”
Although iirc at least one person caught the virus from Patient #31 from an elevator that they used after she had already left it.
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
In fairness anybody with a single brain cell would agree that it's too early to end shutdown with death and new infections still so high.
And if Westminster came out with a plan as wushu washy as either of the Scottish or Welsh versions they'd be crucified, and deservedly so.
Scotland and Wales caved in to media pressure for an exit strategy. The UK government have gotten most calls wrong so far with this epidemic but I think they are right in this.
At the moment they need to be making contingency plans that are flexible enough so they can take on board other countries successes and failures. There is absolutely no need to announce these until a week or so before they are in a position to implement them
I think the sampled households are going to be regularly tested over a number of waves of the survey. I think it’s primarily being driven by Health but the ONS is doing the sample design based on the household surveys it already runs.
YoboCopter
Player Valuation: £50m
UK's death toll rises by 368
Open up boris
Open up boris
Ah i see mate, yep that might be helpful at looking at exponential growth or the social habits of the virus.
Would be good news if the numbers weren't absolute bollocks
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
That's because to a large degree it is. They are learning as they go.
I agree the UK government need to be a lot more open and honest with everyone. On everything.
But as regards lockdown people just have to be patient. Quite simply we're not ready yet and there's no point coming out with a plan when things are changing daily. Surely most people are adult enough to accept the truth.
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
I think they will now if it comes as part of a plan to come out of lockdown
Is it like the Wizard of Oz? We open up Boris and someone who knows what they're doing is inside?
havrey0123
Player Valuation: £25m
Unless there's a massive spike in the next few days lockdown looks certain to be lifted in a couple of weeks
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